illusion
by Constance Greene
Summary: You're not a princess, he's no knight, and no one's going to save you from this fantasy you've been living. — ZexionNaminé


--¤--

for; silver moon droplet's tragic fairytale challenge.  
pairings; **zexion × naminé** ( main ), _axel × zexion & axel × naminé_ ( barely )  
word to be used twice; 'broken.'  
disclaimer; do not have enough money to overtake squeenix & disney.

--▪--

_i_ l l **u** s _i_ o n ;

--▫--

She always thought that princesses lived in castles; not captives.

Of course, that was arguable. Rapunzel was a captive in the highest room of the highest tower in her story, but she was also a princess.

Her _Other_ had been a princess, but the title had been knocked off when she had her heart snatched away from her and now she was called a 'witch.'

She was locked in with a group of villains, and as far as they were determined, there would be no knight in shining armour to rescue her.

Because who would save one of the bad guys?

--▫--

White white white.

Everything was white in her prison.

The walls of the room were strictly rectangular, nearly square, and painted a chrome white that burned her eyes out of focus and made her blink too much.

Her dress was all white.

Her skin was white, and when she pinched it, it glowed the faintest rosy pink flush and then fell back into its normal lack of pigment, almost translucent.

She was a ghost in her room, on her white chair and in her white clothes on the white ground.

The White Witch.

The only colour was her drawings, which were displayed rather clumsily all around the room; some scattered on the floor like litter, nothing more, and others taped at odd angles on the walls. Her set of crayons on her blank lap were the only things that were both bright _and_ colourful.

That didn't mean they cheered her up.

Let's close our eyes and imagine.

What did a real castle look like?

A real castle was courtly and elegant, not bland but rather lit up by chandeliers and beaming with scarlet carpets. A real castle had bubbly servants flooding the corridors, talking animatedly as they carried on with their jobs. There were knights clad in polished steel, patrolling the borders as swiftly as their armour could allow them, and maidens with golden-woven veils tossed across the back of their heads, trailing from their braided silken hair. Unicorns roamed outside in the gardens, puppies played in the dining hall, and nobility spoke of the when's and where's outside of their sacred haven.

And there were princes and princesses.

That was a sanctuary, not the stuffy solitary confinement she was locked in all day.

There was joy.

There was excitement.

There were older boys kissing young ladies lightly on the hands.

And most of all, there was hope.

The only thing she could ever hope for was for _his_ duty not to be switched today.

--▫--

There was only one Organization member that always caught her eye more frequently than others.

Only five Nobodies ever cared to watch over her in Castle Oblivion. That number was now reduced to three. From what Axel told her, Larxene was dead, and Marluxia – the one she might have feared the most, even more than the only female member in the Organization – was gone.

They were all illusions. They didn't exist. They were all _broken_ in some way, different and detached from their past selves. Their past _existing_ selves.

But there was one that intrigued her and she wasn't sure why. She supposed he could appear intimidating, with the way he sulked around with his steel blue hair pushed to one side of his face and plunging that portion of it in a shadow. He wasn't as straightforward and dominating as Marluxia or Axel; he was more like a phantom. But she wasn't afraid.

She almost felt like she could understand him, even though he was an enigma.

That's probably because they were both strikingly alike.

There was a reason behind his visits. She had overheard it one day, outside of her door.

Axel's bantering voice entered her ear, making her freeze momentarily and then consider scribbling more on her notepad, just in case he came in and decided to check on her progress.

But before her hand could move quick enough to begin drawing frantically with her stick of crayon, another voice interrupted. It flooded past the closed doorway, permeating her small room.

"Why do _I_ have to help monitor the brat? It isn't as though she'll possibly try to _escape. _I have much more urgent matters to conduct in the laboratory than to watch over a little girl who has an affixation with drawing," Came a spitting voice that made her cringe with guilt.

"Sorry, _Zexy_. I'm in charge now, as long as Marluxia deals with the Keyblade Master. Your friends are dead. There's nothing left for you to do but resurface." She could visibly hear the man's devilish grin as he said those things.

The owner of the unfamiliar voice stumbled through the door and into the room as though he had been pushed. Naminé caught the flicker of Axel's smirk in the crack of the doorway before it swung closed.

She was caught staring at the intruder with widened glass-blue eyes ( _pretty princess eyes_ ), alarmed by his sudden ( and not so graceful ) arrival. But, unsure of this Nobody's temperament and motives ( except for the derogatory little speech he had given out before proceeding into the room ), she quickly bowed her head and drew her crayon across her drawing pad. It slid as neatly as rubber tires when they skidded, snarls of thin wax curling up from the base like serpents. Blue serpents, from the moat outside of the castle. Ready to gobble her up.

But just because she appeared docile didn't mean she wasn't _curious._ She lifted an eye from beneath her pool of yellow hair, spying on the new ( _bodyguard_ ), who advanced to the chair in the corner by the door, opposite of her own. Naminé thought she saw him kick one of the legs dully before he sunk into it. As he sat there facing her, she detected that he didn't really want to look at her, and his overgrown bangs pushed to one side seemed to float over his entire face to block out his vision. He shifted, and assuming that he was trying to find a good position, crossed his arms over his chest like Axel sometimes did. Then, as though deciding that wasn't suitable enough for his tastes, he put his hands in his lap. He then moved them once more, so that his elbows were resting on the back of the chair's rim. And sighed, seemingly discontented.

How interesting. He didn't appear nervous, per se, but rather frustrated. It wasn't as though his new occupation was hard . . . But perhaps his researching was just far more important than she was. Which was probably true.

Gathering up courage ( or whatever she had within her besides emptiness ), she asked quietly without hardly looking up: "What's your name?"

He directed his gaze to her as if jolted with one of Larxene's thunderbolts. "You may call me Number VI." His voice was clipped and final, emotionless.

She gently lied her crayon down on the smooth page she was on. ". . But I asked for your name." Still just as innocent, though you couldn't stand that _prodding _of the questions themselves.

He drew in a sharp intake of breath, similar to another sigh of exasperation. He kept his narrowed stare on her for a few more long and drawn-out seconds, and she realized they looked like iced-over violets in the wintertime. "Zexion." And those eyes, like snow fairies, quickly danced away from her gaze again.

Now she had no reason to lower her eyes. She let them rest on _Zexion_ ( such a peculiar name; it reminded her of the stars at night ), never letting him go within her line of vision. It was oddly satisfying, that – how _she_ could almost hold someone captive, just in her imagination.

"What happened to your friends, Zexion?" Still utterly harmless, bashfully curious. But somehow, Number VI seemed to detect and underlying threat beneath her inquiry, and twitched.

"They're gone," He snapped. "Didn't you hear Axel?" By now, with all the silences that filled the holes in between conversation and how long it took Naminé to initially speak to him, he decided that his time was up; the silver-haired man rose from his chair and nudged open the doors, letting them swing close behind him with a broken _clank_ as they collided together.

--▫--

That night she dreamt of fields of ice and wilting purple flowers beneath a midnight sky sprayed with starlight and travelling men from far away lands with hair the shade of steel; steel, like the kind candelabrum was made out of; like armour.

--▫--

The following day he was back again, but not without another conversation between he and Axel outside the doorway.

"_Again_? When will one defeat the other?"

"When the first one falls. It's a long battle; quite a show, really. Pity you can't watch it, Zexion – the girl is your only entertainment for today."

"She does nothing but draw and ask me questions."

"Do what you do best, then. But what I can do better."

And with that lingering suggestion, which made Naminé's brow furrow softly in puzzlement, Zexion re-entered the room for the first time that day. He took his ( usual ) seat in the chair by the door, crossing his legs and as stiff as a poll. She imagined he was like one of the pillars in the castle, except not quite as unearthly white.

Today she was drawing a fortress; unlike Castle Oblivion or any elegant palace, its outside was a twisted structure of golden pipeline towers and scarlet scribbles. Frowning lightly as she coloured a block of stone as its foundation, she continued to disregard Zexion's presence – though not entirely. Her silence would be what he wanted for the rest of the day, but she wouldn't let him feel so assured. He would be quietly dreading a question to peek out of her mouth any moment; time was all it took.

She raised her hand to find a cornflower blue crayon to colour in the sky, a series of quick diagonal strokes of her wrist, and then placed it back gently next to the violet and the burgundy crayons.

"Do you like to draw, Zexion?"

"No," Came his instant reply.

The tone of his voice, one not to be reckoned with, stung her like a slap on the back of her hand from an austere tutor; but she gratefully kept her mouth closed until she got up later, heading towards the glass pitcher on the small stand next to the door ( and quaintly adjacent to Zexion's sitting place ) to fetch some more water. Except she also toted her drawing pad and a charcoal crayon with her, tucked under one arm.

"Here," She said, offering the items to him ( _like a ring in the center of a velvet cushion _) with outstretched arms. "Even if you don't like to draw, it must get boring when all you do is watch _me_ draw." The girl shrugged her shoulders, a dainty gesture, and Zexion studied her carefully before taking it – snatching it away from her as though it was a toy not to be played with.

She forced herself to smile lightly, and then returned to her seat. As she continued to work on her own drawing, she heard Zexion working on his after a few moments of tense, contemplative silence. He used wispy strokes, delicate yet efficient, and not once did her sensitive ears pick up the creaking of wax against wax under pressure.

After ten minutes of sketching, she vaguely decided it was time to get more water for her parched throat ( albeit the fact that she wasn't even very thirsty ) and moved back towards the table with the pitcher on it. As she did so, she leaned in curiously, silver plates of eyes darting to Zexion's drawing.

_Drawing_? It was a masterpiece!

Looking down at the paper, she saw a more intricate and stunning edition of Hollow Bastion than she could have ever done – all carefully constructed like an architectural model on a blueprint. It appeared as though it could have been done in graphite as opposed to crayon – the shading, the value, and those lines – _those lines_! They weaved in and out of each other, building up depth, the layers never fully gaining that sickening shine of wax. It wasn't tar that was slopped on the paper but something much more ethereal, and there were those impossibly thin lines that had to be done with the side curve of the crayon's tip, very gently, with a lover's caress and care. Erected before her on that page was not a poor representation of Hollow Bastion with vague resemblance, but a recreation of Radiant Garden itself, an exact replica as seen through one's very real eye as it had been when the first six Nobodies of Organization XIII had worked there.

Gazing upon the creation, she saw art. Five year-old scribbles and connect-the-dots were far behind this artist.

Zexion's hand flew over the drawing as soon as she saw it, however; he buried his fingers into it, ripping it off the page and crumpling it as he did so.

Momentarily rendered speechless, she was able to regain herself in a stumbling, stuttering second. "You – you lied. You're an artist . . ." Naminé sputtered breathlessly, saving the picture within her memory.

"I never said that," He snapped. "I said I dislike drawing, and I will never do it again." And with that note of finality, he left the room in a flurry of snapping cloak hems and stiff arms and clenched fists.

She slowly lowered her empty water glass, placing it on the table beside her. Then she bent to pick up the drawing Zexion had dropped on the way out off of the floor, now reduced to a meager ball laced with creases and crevices. She unfolded it, cautious as to not rip anything, and studied it for a long time. Then she smoothed it out with a small hand and as business-like as possible, swept it into her sketchbook, letting it slip in and settle in between the pages.

--▫--

She was going to be the second death of him, that was for certain. Either her or Axel, he inwardly growled as he strode through the elongated hallway of the castle.

Because she was so _demanding_ and manipulative in her own ways, wasn't she? A little witch, Axel had warned him – but oh, wasn't she a _doll_. Now she was beating him at his own game.

One who didn't know Naminé might glance at her and instantly label her as innocent. Harmless. Innocuous. Then why did it almost appear as though she had taken her hand like his own, a hook or an old hag's crafty claw, and ripped him up with it, like he had done to the drawing?

The drawing. The _puerile_ drawing. It was just another sign of his pathetic nature – to summon up that image of Radiant Garden deep within his memories. And if Naminé was who Xemnas said she was, then perhaps she recognized it, too.

After all, they had both lived there, in their past lives.

If he could feel, he'd be furious at himself.

And with Naminé.

"_Do what you do best, then. But what I can do better_."

Axel had meant lying, of course. And Zexion had . . . but had almost been caught at it. He had been second-guessed – and Zexion, unlike Vexen, was _never_ second-guessed.

She had almost defeated him. Or was it Axel, working behind-the-scenes again?

Speak of the devil.

"Axel," He said, standing him up, "I don't care whether Sora is lying on the floor above us with his throat torn out and bleeding or Marluxia is no more. I am not watching over Naminé any longer."

The red-haired man quirked a brow at Zexion's sudden outburst, watching him as he stood up straight as a soldier. Then all he did was shrug a narrow shoulder carelessly. "Well, it's your funeral."

The curl of skin beneath Number VI's eye twitched. "What?"

"Listen closely, Zexion," Axel began, taking a step forward. "Are you listening?" In a flourish of black and red, he whipped out his dual chakrams, bending his arm at the elbow to fling it at the smaller Organization member. Zexion could barely jerk before two sharp points of the chakram were pressed against the sides of his neck, locking him in. Now Axel had advanced and cleared the space between them, tilting his head ever-so-slightly to speak into the cup of his ear. "Please tell me you're listening."

Zexion swallowed. The sound was amplified at least a thousand times in his head. "I'm listening."

"Good, great, lovely," Axel babbled. "You see, I can't let you leave Naminé on such short notice. You take commands from me now, and I advise you that the White Room is the safest place for you to be at the moment. Unless . . ." He shifted the weapon slightly, so one side dug more into his neck than before. "You have a death wish I didn't know about."

Zexion said nothing. It was difficult to speak anyway, with the cool steel of the chakram's point shoving his left lymph node up into the bottom of his mouth.

"Want to know how Vexen died, Zexy?" He taunted upon hearing no reply. "I stabbed him. Right in the back with one of these." He moved the other weapon to Zexion's chest. "It works just as well on the front side. I'll dig it into the place where your cold black heart used to be." A grin crept along the side of Axel's face, his flashing green eyes narrowed into slits.

"If anyone in this place had a cold black heart, it was you," Zexion growled through gritted teeth, raising his chin with effort.

"That's where you're wrong. I told you you were rusty on lying, Zexion. What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?" Who was the cat? We all know.

Reluctantly, Axel let Zexion go. The younger male stumbled a few steps forward, head nearly crashing into Axel's chest – when Axel put a stopping hand to his forehead and pushed him back. Zexion glared at him from behind his screen of drooping hair, eyes like ( _iced-over violets in a field _). Axel smirked and began to walk away.

Over his shoulder, he called suggestively,

"After you're done with Naminé, maybe you should check up on Riku as well?"

Zexion tightened his hand into a fist. Did that bastard _want_ to get him killed!

_Why yes, of course Zexy. But it's all with the best intentions, don't worry._

He suddenly had an urge to kick the wall, and remembered the chair. He glued his foot to the ground, silently fuming. First Axel told him to stay with Naminé or else he'd get killed, then he told him to leave his post and go take care of Riku. Was he being contradicting and obtuse on purpose? It was all a game, and Zexion was wrapped up in the web of lies, trapped.

But he'd listen to both. He was, after all, the master of the shadows. He could very well slip out of the room for one hour without being noticed by Axel, who was so terribly busy with Sora and Marluxia. Naminé would sit in her room, still and obedient, without him. She didn't need a babysitter – she only fucked your mind, nothing physical. And if she did – he'd _make_ her stay.

He'd make her promise.

--▫--

_Unicorns and villages and fairies and princesses, knights and nobles and kings and queens, princes and dragons and castles and ogres, hearts and stars and magic and wishes, gold and silver and silk and velvet, love and death and tragedy and destiny, all come together for this fateful night!_

--▫--

"You came back," She noted quietly, in her tame voice.

"I had to."

The minutes ticked on. Their eyes were both lowered, but they still saw each other – didn't quite dare to look at each other fully. They never did. There was something too alluring that they found deep within each other's eyes, some mystery that would be so dangerous to crack ( _but didn't they both yearn danger, and both _were _danger, and were _in _danger_? ).

The mental clock clicked and clicked.

Naminé sighed and began to imagine.

He was not a keeper or a servant but a suitor. And she was dressed up in her princess costume, a full dress of gentle blue like the cottony sky that glittered with some foreign ferocity, unknown to the commoners that surrounded the castle in the village. And the room was pink and green and blue ( _magical _colours ) and all the white was drained away, sucked off into oblivion where it would stay forever. There was only her and him.

_Her_ and _Him_.

She had not drawn since morning; an irregular feat that was only done when she felt as though her hand might fall off if she moved it another inch. Now she did not even spare her notepad a glance as her forget-me-not blue eyes gazed up quickly at him, for he had risen from his seat to leave.

"You're leaving early," She noticed, and there was a hint of disappointment in her voice.

The sound of air being issued out of his nasal cavity permeated the room.

"Naminé."

She looked at him steadily.

"I will just be standing outside of the room. Do not leave to visit me, however; you won't need me."

"But . . ." Her? Left unattended? It seemed impossible to imagine; she always had a pair of eyes on her, green or blue or violet or crystal, though their absence wouldn't necessarily be missed ( except for the purple-tinted ones ). Of course, he would only be feet from outside the room, and of course, it wasn't like she needed to be watched over anyway . . . what would she do? Run around Castle Oblivion and wreck havoc? Princesses, she reminded herself, don't act like that.

_They don't implant false memories into innocent people's minds, either._

She inwardly winced with guilt at the haunting voice, and shrugged it away. Honestly, what other harm could Naminé physically cause? The thought of her avenging her lack of freedom in a bloodthirsty way ( _like Axel _) made her feel almost giddy – but not because she thought it was a good idea; it was funny. Funny, that's all. Ironic. Here was pretty china doll princess, all locked up in a room and drawing pictures with crayons – the safest art tool imaginable. She was equally defenseless and harmless.

The blonde heard an unintelligible murmur beneath his breath; it almost sounded like _Please, Naminé, don't look for me. _Then he swept his full attention back to her, his eyes intense on her own.

"Promise me you'll stay in here. I'll be back."

Her eyes widened slightly at that. _Promise_ – perhaps the most magical word of all.

"And . . . be good," He muttered lamely, taking her hand suddenly within his grasp. She was shocked into not speaking, into not agreeing, into not _moving _– the promise and then the touch ( _so intimate_ ) startled her as if into a dream.

"Alright. But you made a promise." _Don't break it._ A broken promise was a thousand maidens weeping over a fallen and great king, a mournful and despairing sight to see.

He said nothing to her compliance, but smiled faintly – a whisper of a smirk on his small mouth – and then raised her hand higher to his lips and gently brushed them against her knuckles. It was nothing more than the fluttering of delicate butterfly wings over her skin, just like the soft gasp she uttered.

A rush of thoughts ( _he was her knight, her prince, a real gentleman _) coursed through her head as he left out the double doors, and the next time she'd see him he would be dying.

--▫--

She was drawing Sora and Riku on Destiny Islands.

It was not the real Destiny Islands, no – it was the faux one generated from memories, tucked away in the higher stories of Castle Oblivion. They were sitting side-by-side on the bent Paopu fruit tree, looking out across the ocean at the sunset. You couldn't see that in the picture, of course – it was just inferred, because they were looking up out of the paper.

Naminé wondered what it would be like to live on an island – she figured it'd be somewhat like where she lived now. It was like a prison, wasn't it? Cast away from the mainland and surrounded by water. No escape for someone who didn't know how to swim or row a boat. Many prisons were placed on secluded islands: Château d'If, Alcatraz – it was because they were just so efficient.

She was absent-mindedly colouring in Riku's hair, and since she was without a silver crayon, she had to mix light blue with yellow – making him almost appear as though he had straw in his hair. Oftentimes she stopped and halted the crayons on the mark, looking out longingly at the great door that separated her from Zexion, the outside world. She felt farther away from him than she ever had when he was normally gone for the night. Perhaps she was just over-exaggerating, but the detached anxiety kept on coming back, like a dragon's hungry jowls when it prowls for dinner.

Without thinking, her strokes became suddenly larger, more prominent. She glanced down at the paper and saw that she had coloured over nearly half of Riku's face with blue, so that it looked as though he had grown out his bangs and swept them to the side.

She looked up quickly. Then back down at the drawing. Sora, Riku . . . ? It wasn't exactly Riku anymore. In fact, it looked like

(_ don't say it don't say it_ )

Zexion.

She was aware of the sound of rapid breathing in her ear, and realized she was hyperventilating. She put the pad down, her crayon clattering to the floor and splitting in two on impact. The pattering of her footsteps led her to the door, and she let it creak open . . .

No one there.

"Zexion?" Her voice was quiet but had an odd bone-chilling magnitude to it, which echoed down the hall like a funeral bell.

_If you leave, you'll be breaking your promise._

_Yes, well, it's already been broken, hasn't it_? She brushed the thought away not quite bitterly, more so distractedly, and made her way down the hall.

--▫--

"Aww, Zexy. What's wrong? Got a fever?"

Zexion stopped still at the sound of that voice, clamping his mouth shut over his panting and forcing himself to stumble no longer. His face was flushed, but beneath it he was as pallid as ever, as if he had seen a ghost. Not quite; he had nearly seen his own death instead, thanks to Riku.

Standing before him, as if out of nowhere ( which was partially true, since the portals _were_ actually dwelling in nothingness ), was the tall man with ketchup-red hair, and Riku Replica, his entourage. Zexion placed a slightly shaking palm on the wall behind him, ready to flee if needed.

"I thought I told you to stay in that room." Now there was an edge of threat to Axel's voice, and his sour apple eyes narrowed.

"You're mistaken, then," Zexion replied. "You also told me to go see Ri—"

Axel waved a hand in dismissal. "Minor details. You really are a dog of the Organization, aren't you? Following everyone's commands . . . but still sneaking around all the same. Tsk, tsk." He shook his head while his hands were placed on his hips, like a mother not knowing what to do with her troublemaking children.

"Sneaking around? I believe _you're _the one who's easier to blame on that faulty point."

"Careful. Talking-back might be against the rules too, you know."

"You're just—"

"We're the only ones left, Zexion!" Axel cried, though there was a devilish smirk plastered to his mouth. "And I declare that I'm in charge.

"Now, Riku. I bet you want to be real, huh?"

The boy, who had been silent for some time, spoke bluntly. "Yeah."

A frown worked onto Zexion's lips. What was Axel up to? He wasn't just blurting out words –

"Well, here's a good place to start."

A look of panic crossed Number VI's face.

"Axel, what are you planning to do—"

"Sorry, Zexy." The man cut in, stepping forward as Riku advanced. "If you thought I'd save you, you're dreadfully mistaken. You messed up on your calculations. Can't have that happening again."

Before he could rush to summon a portal, Riku stepped forward, and with a steely arm, grabbed him around the throat and lifted him up off the ground. Zexion uttered a strangled noise, choking – while Axel sat back and watched. He began to fade before his very eyes, like how a body deteriorated on fast forward mode, except seeming to evaporate upwards instead of collapsing in on itself. The strength of the murderer's grip could break a human neck, or at least colour it black and blue. Instead of his head lolling onto his shoulder, broken, he dissipated into nothingness.

No one noticed the girl hiding behind the corner, watching the entire scene.

--▫--

She ran down the hall with a blur of tears stinging her eyes.

_Nobodies don't cry. Princesses don't, either._

The clatter of her sandaled feet reverberated like how a horse-drawn carriage would sound, frantically running away, away –

Away to nowhere. Away to Never Never Land, like in her dreams.

She was going to a faraway castle. Zexion would be waiting there for her; she knew it. There they wouldn't be broken anymore. They'd be whole again. A knight and a princess.

Naminé turned the corner into her room. She searched for something, desperately, her eyes darting to and fro with urgency. She grabbed what she found with her cherubic fingers and stowed it away behind her back, listening for footsteps outside, down the hall.

There they were.

"Naminé, you better be in there," Came the confident voice of Axel as he strode down the corridor, hand grasping the knob to the door and prying it open.

He probably expected her to be in her chair as usual, and therefore a look of surprise struck his face when she rushed towards him, raising a hand like one would hold a dagger before the blow and stabbing him in the stomach, the glint of something metallic apparent in her hold.

--▫--

She raised the knife ( or sword, left for her by her knight ) and plunged it into Axel's body. As she felt it dimple into flesh, she collapsed to her knees, feeling very faint.

She was repeating over and over in her head,

( _did i kill him? did i did i did i o god did i? _)

--▫--

He was driven back against the door, nearly doubling over and hands clutching at his stomach more out of surprise than in pain.

He didn't begin to fade, though, Naminé would be sorry to report.

Axel came back with half of a black crayon in his hand, raising it to his eyes for inspection. The other fragment was lying on the floor – it had broken on impact when she had stabbed him with it.

The kid thought she could kill him with a crayon. You had to try harder than that to kill Axel, child.

A smirk lifted the corner of his lips, and a slight amused chuckle purred in his throat. He bent down so he was level with the sulking Naminé, who was gently sobbing and clutching the ground without a grip.

"You've been a bad girl, haven't you? I thought it was clear that you should never leave your room, unattended or no."

He propped her limp form up slightly, but when she flopped over his shoulder like a doll, he shrugged and picked her up like that.

As he carried her down the hallways, past the place where Zexion had died, she scraped up tufts of the fabric covering his back in her fists and wailed in between sniffles and choked sobs, "Why did you have to kill him?"

"Because you've gotta learn that no one's ever gonna save you, doll," Axel replied matter-of-factly. "Reality is a manipulative bitch, especially when you aren't a part of it.

"But hey, at least I don't think you have to live in a castle anymore."

She remained silent for the rest of the journey to outside, dulled down by the cruel reality of this – this place she had never seen before. She blinked against the twilight, rubbing her eyes and clearing away the tears enough to see. Out across a field of green was a path, and two dim shapes were cresting the hill on that path, silhouettes in the backdrop of a golden, dying sun.

Axel put her down on the ground – she was shaky on her legs at first, but eventually regained her balance.

"Follow them if you want. There's nothing left you can do at Castle Oblivion."

She was free. Wasn't this what she had always asked for?

She could go anywhere. She didn't have to follow Riku and his companion – she could run off into the fields that looked curiously like a castle's royal courtyard and very well never be caught again by her memories.

But she supposed they were the only _real_ chance she had.

Besides, it might just be a place to start.

She looked behind her, but Axel was nowhere to be seen. He had disappeared, just like the rest of them – except he was the only Organization survivor in Castle Oblivion.

I'd like to say she skipped off into the sunset, but instead, she walked. I'd like to say she lived happily ever after, but we don't know that.

We know the mind tends to haunt us, however.

And we know that Naminé would let that happen as a punishment for not saving _Him._

Zexion.

"_Promise me you'll stay here._

"_I'll be back."_

She'd be waiting.

--¤--

I know the ending fails… well, jeez, what am I saying? The entire thing does. But it does still have some symbolism to it.

Naminé was just short of delusional, imagining up silly fantasies and the like. Axel showed her you couldn't dream like that, because it wasn't real. In a sense, the ending was a tragedy – it probably would have been sadder if I had stopped after Zexion was killed and she simply found out and went and did some emoing. But the way I wrote it, it was _depressing_, but with an optimistic side-note. Reality sucks and we all know it. But that doesn't mean you can just crawl into a hole and let your mind rot and die. That goes for a false reality-creating imagination, as well.

I don't know. I don't usually try to get these dumb points across in my writing. I'm just the writer; you, as the reader, are the interpreter. And there's just about a thousand ways you can twist this up with your mind, so why not stretch it a little?

Anywho, I bet my explanatory license runs short on its time-limit. Do leave a review on the way out.

_A dream within a dream._


End file.
